"By the renunciation of the
earthly, does faith in the Eternal first arise in our soul, and is there enshrined apart,
as the only support to which we can cling after we have given up all else,--as the only
animating principle that can elevate our minds and inspire our lives."
(Fichte, 1965, 145)

"Only
through the common fountain of our spiritual being do we know of each other; only in Him
do we recognise each other, and influence each other."
(Ibid, 156)

"The Eternal Will is thus assuredly the
Creator of the World, in the only way in which He can be so, and in the only way in which
it needs creation: in the finite reason."
(Ibid, 157)

In the contemplation of
these Thy relations to me, the finite being, will I rest in calm blessedness. I know immediately what I ought to do. This will I do
freely, joyfully , and without cavilling and sophistry, for it is Thy voice which commands
me to do it; it is the part assigned to me in the spiritual World-plan; and the power with
which I shall perform it is Thy power . Whatever may be commanded by that voice, whatever
executed by that power, is, in that plan, assuredly and truly good. I remain tranquil amid
all the events of this world, for they are in Thy world. Nothing can perplex or surprise,
or dishearten me, as surely as Thou livest, and can look upon Thy life. For in Thee and
through Thee, O Infinite One! do I behold even my present world in another light. Nature, and natural consequences, are opposed to
Thee, become empty, unmeaning words. Nature is no longer; Thou, only Thou, art. (Ibid, 162)

Blessed be the hour in which I first
resolved to inquire into myself and my vocation! All my doubts are solved; I know what I
can know, and have no apprehensions regarding that which I cannot know. I am satisfied;
perfect harmony and clearness reign in my soul, and a new and more glorious spiritual
existence begins for me. My
entire complete vocation I cannot comprehend; what I shall be hereafter transcends my
thoughts. A part of that vocation is concealed from me; it is visible only to One, to the
Father of Spirits, to whose care it is committed. I know only that it is sure, and that it
is eternal and glorious like Himself. (Ibid, 165)

Now that my heart is closed against
all desire for earthly things, now that I have no longer any sense for the transitory and
perishable, the universe appears before my eyes clothed in more glorious form. The dead
heavy mass, which only filled up space, has vanished; and in its place there flows inward,
with the rushing music of mighty waves, an eternal stream of life and power and action,
which issues from the original Source of all life--from Thy life, and only the religious
eye penetrates to the realm of True Beauty. (Ibid, 172)

Thy life, as alone the finite mind
can conceive, it is self-forming, self-manifesting Will: --this Life, clothed to the eye of
the mortal with manifold sensuous forms, flows forth through me and throughout the
immeasurable universe of Nature. Here
it streams as self-creating and self-forming matter through my veins and muscles, and
pours its abundance into the tree, the flower, the grass. Creative life flows forth in one
continuous stream drop on drop, through all forms and into all places where my eye can
follow it; and reveals itself to me, in a different shape in each various corner of the
universe, as the same power by which in secret darkness my own frame was formed. There, in
free play, it leaps and dances as spontaneous motion in the animal, and manifests itself
in each new form as a new, peculiar, self-subsisting world.
The same power which, invisibly to me, moves and animates my own frame. Everything that
lives and moves follows this universal impulse, this one principle of all motion, which,
from one end of the universe to the other, guides the harmonious movement. (Ibid, 172-173)